Thursday, June 16, 2011

DPA Armatures

Here are the armatures welded up. I used the drawings on the floor to size these. Think of them as skeletons to hold the foam and clay up. Tomorrow I will be gluing foam insulation board over these to fill out and roughly shape the figures. Got 240 pounds of Chavant sulphur free plasteline clay today. This is an oil based clay that will not dry out while I'm sculpting. In the past I have used water based clay and spent far too much time trying to keep the clay the correct level of damp. The plasteline will eliminate that time drain.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Duluth Public Art Project (DPA)

I received the first payment for the DPA project this week and can finally get started. I was awarded the project in February but it takes time to deal with contracts and insurance. Now the fun begins. I will be making at least weekly posts so you can follow the progress. First thing to do is figure scale, shrinkage and armature (steel skeleton). This is a picture of the two figures drawn out on the floor to the scale that the original clay sculpture (the pattern) will be. The tape measure is pulled out to 7 feet. The finished bronze sculpture will shrink about 5% through the process of going from clay to wax to bronze.